Page 37 of The Masterful Mr. Montague

The sergeant arched his brows. “Think he’ll come back?”

“I think it’s a possibility.” Stokes looked up as the three constables he’d sent to ask around as to any veiled lady sighted in the area over the last days returned.

They saluted. At Stokes’s questioning look, the more senior shook his head. “No luck, sir. We’ve asked up and down both legs of Winchester Street, even managed to catch that match-seller again—she’s an observant one—but no one’s seen any veiled lady loitering about.”

Stokes nodded. “It was a long shot, but one we had to rule out. Good work.”

Two minutes later, he left the sergeant and the constables to organize the details of the watch and headed back to Scotland Yard.

Barnaby elected to question the bank staff first, before the head clerk had a chance to forget him. He produced Montague’s card anyway, judging that Montague’s reputation had more weight in this sphere than his own.

“Mr. Montague suggested that some of your tellers might recall the means by which recent cash deposits into Lady Halstead’s account were presented.” He took care to affect a hopeful expression. “Any help you or the staff can give us would be much appreciated.”

“Hmm.” The head clerk, a somewhat officious, self-important little man, pursed his lips, but then nodded. “While I can’t promise anything—this is a busy branch with many accounts—if you will give me a few minutes, I’ll see what I can learn.”

Barnaby inclined his head and drifted to where a row of chairs stood against one wall. Sitting in one, he watched as the clerk returned to his desk, flipped through a stack of papers, and withdrew one—presumably another bank record of some sort. After perusing the document, the head clerk took it with him. He scanned the four tellers at their stations, then made his way to one particular teller, an older man at the last window along the counter.

The clerk waited until the teller finished with the customer before him, then stepped in and, showing the teller the back record, pointed to it and asked a question. The two men exchanged words, then the teller nodded.

Barnaby fought the urge to rise and go and see, to question the teller directly . . . he would need to speak to the man directly, regardless of what the head clerk thought or said.

Luckily, the head clerk looked over and beckoned.

When Barnaby came to the counter, the head clerk smiled with arrogant satisfaction. “Mr. Wadsworth recalls receiving the last cash deposit into Lady Halstead’s account clearly, and believes it was presented in the same manner as the previous cash deposits over the last year or so.”

Barnaby inclined his head to the clerk. “Excellent.” He looked at the teller. “Can you remember who paid in the money?”

“Indeed, sir,” Wadsworth said. “I and my colleagues noted it especially, as it seemed . . . well, out of character for what one might imagine for a lady of Lady Halstead’s standing.”

Puzzled, Barnaby asked, “Out of character in what way?”

The teller glanced at the head clerk, as if confirming he was permitted to speak. When the clerk nodded, Wadsworth returned his gaze to Barnaby. “It was a courier service, sir. Always a different person, but they have a valid deposit slip, all properly signed, so we have to accept the cash.”

Barnaby hesitated; the news wasn’t at all what he’d anticipated, but . . . perhaps he should have. “A courier service—by that you mean the sort of service that criminals use for . . . shall we say, suspect payments?”

Wadsworth nodded. “Exactly that sort of service, sir. We tellers get to recognize the couriers, and we certainly recognize their sort. It’s really rather obvious, of course, because they aren’t the sort of person one would imagine having the amount of cash they’re handing over the counter.”

Barnaby nodded. “Thank you both. I’ll take this information back to Mr. Montague and Inspector Stokes.” He met both men’s eyes and lowered his voice. “I’m sure I don’t need to mention that this information is highly sensitive and needs to be kept under your hat.”

“Of course not, sir,” Wadsworth said.

The head clerk drew himself up. “We at Grimshaws Bank pride ourselves on our discretion.”

Hiding a smile, Barnaby inclined his head. “Again, thank you. I bid you gentlemen a good day.”

With polite nods all around, Barnaby left the counter and, suppressing the spring in his step, strode out to the pavement. “One matter accomplished.” He looked about. “Now for the second.”

He spent the next hour in fruitless ambling along the streets surrounding the bank, asking any of those who were, for whatever reason, fixtures along the way if they had sighted the veiled lady earlier that morning. He’d almost given up hope—had almost accepted that one success a day was as much as he could expect—when he saw a boy of ten or so years wielding a broom at the corner of a lane just around the bend in Bishopsgate.

Strolling up to the lad, hands sunk in his greatcoat pockets, he used the line of patter he’d developed over the past hour. “I was supposed to meet my sister here this morning, and, of course, I slept in. She was supposed to go to the bank back there and meet me outside, but now I don’t know if she came and left, or if she hasn’t shown at all. She’s a lady, and she would have been wearing a veil—she usually does when she travels here.”

“Yeah?” The boy eyed him. “So what does she look like, this sister of yourn? Other than being female and wearing a veil?”

Barnaby rattled off the general description—brown hair, middle height, about Barnaby’s own age.

He could barely believe it when the boy nodded. “You saw her?” he asked in response to the boy’s nod.

“Aye.” The boy pointed along the street. “She came walking up from Threadneedle Street, and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, guv, but a gentleman was waiting for her in a coach pulled up to the curb just along there.”